Friday, May 6, 2016

In an astounding New York Times pieceby David Samuels, senior White House officials gleefully confess they use friendly reporters and nonprofits as public relations tools in the selling of President Obama's foreign policy -- and can do it almost at will because these tools are ignorant, will believe what they’re told, will essentially take dictation and are happy to be used just to get the information necessary for a tweet or two.

The White House's "greatest triumph, according to Samuels, was selling a misleading narrative about the nuclear deal with Iran -- the parameters of which were set a year before the administration claimed and which had nothing to do with the fact that a supposedly more accommodating government had risen to power," Podhoretz states.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report reveals that President Barack Obama has attended only 42.1% of his daily intelligence briefings (known officially as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB) in the 2,079 days of his presidency through September 29, 2014.

The GAI report also included a breakdown of Obama’s PDB attendance record between terms; he attended 42.4% of his PDBs in his first term and 41.3% in his second.

The GAI’s alarming findings come on the heels of Obama’s 60 Minutes comments on Sunday, wherein the president laid the blame for the Islamic State’s (ISIS) rapid rise squarely at the feet of his Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

"I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria," Obama is quoted as saying.

"According to Daily Beast reporter Eli Lake, members of the Defense establishment were 'flabbergasted' by Obama’s attempt to shift blame," Breitbart reports.

"Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bulls-------," a former senior Pentagon official 'who worked closely on the threat posed by Sunni jihadists in Syria and Iraq' told the Daily Beast," according to Breitbart.com.

Friday, June 6, 2014

President Ronald Reagan was the first sitting president to attend a D-Day anniversary observance in Normandy, and his emotional remembrance on the 40th anniversary on June 6, 1984, has been described as one of his most memorable speeches.

Joining him, 30 years ago Friday, were surviving members of an Army Rangers team that had scaled cliffs at Pointe du Hoc[Google map] to silence German guns protecting the Normandy beaches.

Here is video of President Reagan's remarks delivered June 6, 1984, and below is a transcript:

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For 4 long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue.

Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon.

At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns.

The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers -- the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb.

They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to climb over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again.

They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe.

Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After 2 days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.

These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

I think I know what you may be thinking right now -- thinking "we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day." Well, everyone was.

Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders?

Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren't. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him -- Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, "Sorry I'm a few minutes late," as if he'd been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he'd just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.

There was the impossible valor of the Poles who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadianswho had already seen the horrors of war on this coast.

They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a rollcall of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore: the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland's 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England's armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard's "Matchbox Fleet" and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you.

Yet, you risked everything here.

Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here?

We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next.

It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day: their rockhard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause.

And, so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do.

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured.

These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together.

There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall plan led to the Atlantic alliance -- a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin.

Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost 40 years after the war.

Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as 40 years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose -- to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost.

We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.

But we try always to be prepared for peace; prepared to deter aggression; prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms; and, yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It's fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II: 20 million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war.

I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the Earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands.

And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that some day that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We are bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality.

The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for.

Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their value[valor], and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

The force, which was set up in recent weeks, currently is made up of eight men who served in the Ukrainian or Israeli armies or have martial arts skills, the team’s founder, Tzvi Arieli [here is his Facebook page], told JTA Thursday.

"Protect the Jews in Ukraine" is the title of the force's Facebook page.

The purpose of the volunteer team from Kiev is to "combat antisemitic attacks and ensure safety of the 110,000 strong Jewish community," says the "About" section of the group's Facebook page.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

This week, a group of parents told the city administration in the small Tuscan town of Pontassieve that they would not go along with the introduction of the homosexualist "gender" ideology in their schools.

The parentsaddressed the proposed "ECOS -- Deconstructing to Build" program that aims to "help eliminate the stereotypes associated with gender." Parents quoted the Italian Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights that say in the area of public education, the state "must respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions." The school, they said, "must not invade the field of education within the family."

The parents said, "The appropriate and necessary fight against bullying and all forms of discrimination cannot be manipulated by anyone or used to spread messages of other kinds, such as the affirmation of gender identity."

"While a project to make 'diversityeducation' standard throughout Italy’s schools has been successfully blocked in Parliament, the same work is proceeding at the municipal level," White reports. "It was recently blasted by the Archbishop of Turin who called it an attempt to turn local schools into 're-education camps' for the extreme left."

LifeSiteNews also reports that, "at the same time, a set of government guidelines instructs journalists never to portray homosexuals or 'transsexuals' in a negative light. The document, created according to a mandate by the Council of Europe, threatens journalists with unnamed 'professional sanctions' and even possible jail time for failing to comply."

Thursday, January 2, 2014

"Former Polish President Lech Walesa says America no longer leads the world "in terms of politics and morality," Rebecca Shabad reports at The Hill:

"Walesa, in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, spoke negatively about President Obama’s leadership skills," according to Shabad.

"When he was elected, there was great hope in the world. We were hoping that Obama would reclaim moral leadership for America, but that failed. America does not lead the world in the area of morality," Walesa is quoted as saying.

Walesa is a "Nobel Prize winner" and "served as president of Poland in the 1990s," when he "led the Solidarity movement that helped end the Soviet Union's grip on Eastern Europe," Shabad explains.

The former president of Poland "acknowledged the United States military remains the world's top power but argued the U.S. economy is getting weaker," Shabad reports.

"'America did not regain its leadership status,' [Walesa] said, adding that the world is lucky there were no major conflicts because otherwise it would be helpless," according to The Hill. "It’s a dangerous situation in the long run, Walesa said. 'We are awaiting a president who will understand that'."

Over at American Thinker, Rick Moran comments on America's place in today's world: "Where we aren't getting kicked out, we're retreating. No one fears us, no one trusts us. No one much likes us. The thugs of the world rejoice that President Obama is in office, while our former allies try to make sense of our policies.

"Walesa is right," Moran concludes. "If, as some speculate, a major war is on the horizon, God help us all."

Monday, December 9, 2013

Hundreds of thousands of protesters swarmed Ukraine’s capital Kiev on Sunday, where the country’s opposition leaders urged them to continue heaping pressure on President Viktor Yanukovich to sack his government and abandon plans for closer ties with Russia.

Many of the demonstrators who gathered at the city’s central Independence Square are furious with the government over its decision to back out of a historic agreement with the European Union in favour of a possible trade deal with Russia, Ukraine’s Soviet-era ruler.

The protest . . . is just the latest sign of mounting tensions in Ukraine over the past two weeks, raising fears over the country’s political and economic stability.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Members of the State Legislative Council of New South Wales, Australia voted earlier this week by a narrow margin of 21 to 19 to uphold the true meaning of marriage.

"It’s a no-brainer that we should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist," said lesbian and journalist Masha Gessen at the Syndey Writers Festival in June 2012.

"That causes my brain some trouble," Gessen went on to say. "And part of why it causes me trouble is because fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there -- because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie."

Thursday, November 14, 2013

The Japanese are living out a dystopia like the one described in P.D. James's novel The Children of Men, which portrays a world where everyone is infertile and no children are being born. Mark Steyn writes:

In Lady James's speculative fiction, pets are doted on as child-substitutes, and churches hold christening ceremonies for cats.

In contemporary Japanese reality, Tokyo has some 40 "cat cafés" where lonely solitary citizens can while away an afternoon by renting a feline to touch and pet for a couple of companiable hours.

In Lady James's speculative fiction, all the unneeded toys are burned, except for the dolls, which childless women seize on as the nearest thing to a baby and wheel through the streets.

In contemporary Japanese reality, toy makers, their children's market dwindling, have instead developed dolls for seniors to be the grandchildren they'll never have: You can dress them up, and put them in a baby carriage, and the computer chip in the back has several dozen phrases of the kind a real grandchild might use to enable them to engage in rudimentary social pleasantries.

Mark Steyn describes here how the Japanese are opting out of sex and marriage too.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

AFP reports that jihadists are taunting survivors after killing Christians in the ancient Syrian town of Maalula. According to a woman named Rasha:

The jihadists had seized her fiance Atef, who belonged to the town's militia, and brutally murdered him.

"I rang his mobile phone and one of them answered," she said.

"Good morning, Rashrush," a voice answered, using her nickname. "We are from the Free Syrian Army. Do you know your fiance was a member of the shabiha (pro-regime militia) who was carrying weapons, and we have slit his throat."

The man told her Atef had been given the option of converting to Islam, but had refused.

"Jesus didn't come to save him," he taunted.

For more, see the APF report "Syrian Christian 'Made to Convert at Gunpoint'."

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

President Barack Obama toasted the founding dictator of post-colonial Tanzania on Monday, who collectivized the nation’s low-tech agricultural sector, established a one-party state and left that African nation’s economy in ruins.

"[Y]ou might say an American child is my child. We might say a Tanzanian child is my child," Obama said after quoting the Tanzanian saying "my neighbor’s child is my child."

"In this way, both of our nations will be looking after all of our children and we’ll be living out the vision of President [Julius] Nyerere," Obama continued.

"The core values that he proclaimed for Tanzania also describe what both our countries seek -- wisdom, unity, and peace -- Hekima, Umoja, na Amani," Obama said at a state dinner, held at 9:00 p.m. local time.

"Nyerere 'led a one-party state that nationalized key industries and created ujamaa, a rural, collective village-based movement of "African socialism" and "self reliance,"' according to a 2011 report by the Congressional Research Service," the Daily Caller reports.

"That ujamaa policy was very fashionable among U.S. and European progressives in the 1980s, when Obama was attending Colombia University and Harvard University," according to the Daily Caller.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Through the slit of the burqa she wore to blend in on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, Kalli Atteya waited and watched until the boy climbed off the school bus. When she saw him, she moved quickly, grabbing his arm and steering him toward the waiting motorized cart.

"Get in," she said to the 12-year-old, who recognized his mother's piercing blue eyes and obeyed wordlessly.

Soon, they were speeding toward a safehouse where they would wait for three weeks before returning to the U.S., and ending a 20-month ordeal that began with another abduction -- one the boy, Khalil Mohamed "Niko" Atteya, did not accept willingly.

"His father, Mohamed Atteya, who is wanted by the U.S. authorities, is accused of luring the mother and son to his homeland, then snatching the boy and leaving Kalli Atteya and her sister on the side of a desolate road between Cairo and Port Said on Aug. 1, 2011," reports Fox.

"My Dad forced me to be Muslim, which I did not want to do," Niko is quoted as saying.

Monday, March 4, 2013

In an interview on BBC TVB Arabic, Jamila Ismael, the rising female leader of Egypt's opposition said, "We met Secretary John Kerry and told him we reject Washington's imposition of the Muslim Brotherhood on us. We told him our people deserves better than the Islamists."

The female leader said civil society in Egypt rejects Washignton's pressure to submitto the Ikhwan [Brotherhood] rule. "Treat us like you treat Americans, we want equality between men and women, full rights to minorities. The Brotherhood you support wants to crush freedoms. Why do you talk about change in your elections and support the forces that obstruct change in Egypt."

Observers in Washington said Ismael and other liberal leaders in Egypt are now in a position to embarrass those who in the US claim they are liberal, but when it comes to Egypt and the Arab world, side with the fundamentalists, against women and minorities.

Thursday, February 28, 2013

In 2000 the Dutch government decided to make it even easier for pimps, traffickers and punters by legalising the already massive and highly visible brothel trade. Their logic was as simple as it was deceptive: to make things safer for everyone. Make it a job like any other. Once the women were liberated from the underworld, the crooks, drug dealers and people traffickers would drift away.

That was theory. Now, 12 years later, the results are in and all too clear. Bindel writes:

Rather than afford better protection for the women, it has simply increased the market. Rather than confine the brothels to a discrete (and avoidable) part of the city, the sex industry has spilt out all over Amsterdam -- including on-street. Rather than be given rights in the "workplace", the prostitutes have found the pimps are as brutal as ever. The government-funded union set up to protect them has been shunned by the vast majority of prostitutes, who remain too scared to complain.

The legislative nomenclature has changed, but the harsh reality of the sex trade remains. Bindel explains:

Pimps, under legalisation have been reclassified as managers and businessmen. Abuse suffered by the women is now called an "occupational hazard", like a stone dropped on a builder’s toe. Sex tourism has grown faster in Amsterdam than the regular type of tourism: As the city became the brothel of Europe, women have been imported by traffickers from Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia to meet the demand. In other words, the pimps remained but became legit -- violence was still prevalent but part of the job, and trafficking increased. Support for the women to leave prostitution became almost nonexistent. The innate murkiness of the job has not been washed away by legal benediction.

"The Dutch government hoped to play the role of the honourable pimp, taking its share in the proceeds of prostitution through taxation," Bindel writes. "But only 5 per cent of the women registered for tax, because no one wants to be known as a whore -- however legal it may be."

Despite all of this openminded, libertine legality, crime also persists in the sex trade: "Illegality has simply taken a new form, with an increase in trafficking, unlicensed brothels and pimping," Bindel notes. "With policing completely out of the picture, it was easier to break the laws that remained."

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Embattled French President Francois Hollande suffered a fresh setback Saturday when France’s highest court threw out a plan to tax the ultrawealthy at a 75 percent rate, saying it was unfair.

In a stinging rebuke to one of Socialist Hollande’s flagship campaign promises, the constitutional council ruled Saturday that the way the highly contentious tax was designed was unconstitutional. It was intended to hit incomes over €1 million ($1.32 million).

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The internet has empowered freedom movements across the globe. But now, heavy-handed governments have persuaded the UN to give them power to control the internet.

This regressive change did not go unnoticed by L. Gordon Crovitz at theWall Street Journal. He writes:

The open Internet, available to people around the world without the permission of any government, was a great liberation. It was also too good to last. Authoritarian governments this month won the first battle to close off parts of the Internet.

At the just-concluded conference of the International Telecommunications Union in Dubai, the U.S. and its allies got outmaneuvered. . . . A majority of the 193 United Nations member countries approved a treaty giving governments new powers to close off access to the Internet in their countries.

'"Authoritarian governments are highly motivated to close the Internet off. But just as in the Cold War, these regimes are doomed to lose if free countries resolve to fight," Crovitz concludes.

"Whatever governments want, people prefer freedom and eventually will get it, including on the Internet."

Friday, November 30, 2012

The French politician who said Indian steel company ArcelorMittal should leave the country has told CNBC that his government is only acting like U.S. President Barack Obama.

Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg, a member of the governing Socialist party, caused controversy last week when he said that the Indian company, which employs close to 20,000 people in France, should leave after it said it would have to close down a factory.

The French government announced on Thursday that it could nationalize the factory in question, with backing from an unnamed businessman.

Montebourg reportedly "told CNBC after a meeting with trade unions in Paris: 'Barack Obama nationalized. The Germans are nationalizing. All countries are nationalizing. I've also noticed the British nationalized 6 banks.'"

Hat tip: Drudge

Saturday, November 24, 2012

The Ugandan newssite New Vision reports President Yoweri Museveni celebrated Uganda’s 50th anniversary of independence from Britain at the National Jubilee Prayers event by publicly repenting of his personal sin and the sins of the nation.

"I stand here today to close the evil past, and especially in the last 50 years of our national leadership history and at the threshold of a new dispensation in the life of this nation. I stand here on my own behalf and on behalf of my predecessors to repent. We ask for your forgiveness," Museveni prayed.

"We confess these sins, which have greatly hampered our national cohesion and delayed our political, social and economic transformation. We confess sins of idolatry and witchcraft which are rampant in our land. We confess sins of shedding innocent blood, sins of political hypocrisy, dishonesty, intrigue and betrayal," Museveni said.

"Forgive us of sins of pride, tribalism and sectarianism; sins of laziness, indifference and irresponsibility; sins of corruption and bribery that have eroded our national resources; sins of sexual immorality, drunkenness and debauchery; sins of unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred and revenge; sins of injustice, oppression and exploitation; sins of rebellion, insubordination, strife and conflict," Museveni prayed.

President Museveni also lifted up his nation to God, praying, "We want to dedicate this nation to you so that you will be our God and guide. We want Uganda to be known as a nation that fears God and as a nation whose foundations are firmly rooted in righteousness and justice to fulfill what the Bible says in Psalm 33:12: Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. A people you have chosen as your own."

Friday, November 23, 2012

Egypt's president [Mohammed Morsi] on Thursday issued constitutional amendments that placed him above judicial oversight and ordered the retrial of Hosni Mubarak for the killing of protesters in last year's uprising. . . .

The Egyptian leader also decreed that all decisions he has made since taking office in June and until a new constitution is adopted and a new parliament is elected -- which is not expected before next spring -- are not subject to appeal in court or by any other authority.

"The moves effectively remove any oversight on Morsi, the longtime Muslim Brotherhood figure who became Egypt's first freely elected president last summer after the Feb. 11, 2011 fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak," AP reports. "They come as Morsi is riding high on lavish praise from President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for mediating an end to eight days of fighting between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers."

Note: Morsi is now a dictator. This is after he "narrowly won the presidency -- about 52 percent of the vote -- to become Egypt's first freely elected and civilian president," AP reports.

Free elections do not guarantee freedom. Any country that elects a national leadership that rejects the rules of freedom opens wide the door to unfreedom.

As his record demonstrates, Barack Obama is an extremist who sees the rules of freedom, as set forth in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, as a barrier to his agenda. He narrowly won re-election on November 6, taking the popular vote of 50.6%, over against Mitt Romney's 47.8%.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Hundreds of thousands of traditional marriage supporters demonstrated against same-sex “marriage” in France over the weekend.

On Saturday, a nationwide rally drew an estimated 200,000 protesters in Paris according to organizers, with tens of thousands more attending rallies throughout the country.

Almost 30,000 traditional marriage supporters demonstrated in the city of Lyon, according to a Reuters report. Police there reported that 40 counter-protesters were arrested after they attempted to disrupt the rally.

Note: The issue here is perhaps better framed not as "traditional marriage" vesus "gay marriage" but as real marriage -- marriage per se -- versus its homosexualist counterfeit, an artificial social construct that extremists seek to impose.

Pro-homosexualist extremists desperately want people to think of their radicalism as a civil rights issue -- but the kitty kat is let out of the bag once one realizes that acceptance of the "gay" agenda requires the rejection of the basis for any kind of humane and civil society.

You can find that basis expressed the Declaration of Independence, which roots unalienable human rights in the Creator, and not in the state, activist groups, nature "red in tooth and claw," a politician's scary know-it-all smile, or last week's "gender" truth at "Dude, We Are Totally With It" University.

We commend those companies that respect marriage and think with their brains instead of their pseudo-intellectual "transgender parts."

We brazenly commend a politics and polity that courageously affirms the truly liberating family norms endowed upon humanity by "the laws of nature and of nature's God."

We wantonly stand against extremist homosexualist hatreds that discriminate against the institution of marriage, that disrespect the male-female diversity of marriage, and despise the Creator's transcultural norms for human sexuality and married community.

"Go ahead, sweeten this hatred by calling it 'equality,' if it makes you feel better," I have written elsewhere. "But it's as real as a three-dollar bill. And, if truth be told, it's cruel and unloving to try to impose this brummagem upon society."

Palin writes, "We've got a CIA Director sharing security info with his mistress using an unsecure gmail account. We've got the delusional Susan Rice blaming the death of an ambassador on a Youtube video. We've got Iran firing on one of our drones a week before the election. We've got the White House either ignorant of or covering up all of this."

All of this raises a question: "Who is minding the store?"

Palin continues: "Everywhere we look we see the rank incompetence or corruption of the people who are supposedly running our country and our major institutions. Let's hope that responsible reporters at Obama's press conference today ask the right questions Americans deserve answers to."

Palin concludes with a question to Obama: "As our nation's chief executive you claim to be unaware of the most important and tragic situations we're facing; so, as a former chief executive, I'd like to know how long it takes for your staff to tell you things like: 'Sir, your CIA Director is under investigation'?"

Saturday, November 10, 2012

The speculation surrounding the sudden resignation of CIA Chief General David Petraeus is focusing in large part on his role in an alleged cover-up of the attacks against the U.S. mission in Benghazi this past September.

Perhaps overlooked is the CIA’s role in purportedly using the Benghazi mission to coordinate U.S. aid to Syrian opposition groups and information those same insurgents include jihadists openly acting under the al-Qaida umbrella.

One week before he was slated to testify before Congress on the Benghazi debacle, Petraeus on Friday night announced his resignation, citing an extramarital affair, and it was reported he will no longer testify.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the House Homeland Security Committee chairman, charged in an interview with CNN that Petraeus is “at the center of this, and there are answers that only he has.” King was referring to the Benghazi attacks.

Asked if he will still call for Petraeus testify despite his resignation, Rep. King replied, “Absolutely, to me, he’s an absolutely necessary witness.”

Petraeus towed the party line with the video but refused to fall on the sword and say the CIA gave this stand down order, thus implicating that it was Obama who had denied help to both the consulate and CIA annex which later came under attack.

And when you cross a Chicago thug like Obama, payback is swift and lethal.

Petraeus needed to be taken out -- but after the election -- and before he was scheduled to testify under oath this time to Congress about what he knew about Benghazi.

"Petraeus’ resignation had nothing to do with an affair," Zane asserts.

"In fact, the affair had been over for months. The FBI has been investigating literally thousands of emails that Petraeus had sent to his former paramour, biographer Paula Broadwell, for longer than that and could have dropped the guillotine months before if they wanted to."

If not the stated rationale, then what?

Zane concludes: "It was rather about paybacks and keeping the American people in the dark about the real reason Petraeus had to be kept quiet about Benghazi: gunrunning. Gunrunning of tens of thousands of Libyan weapons to the al-Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels."

Gowdy said that while he regretted the "personal ramifications" of Petraeus’ sudden resignation over an extramarital affair, it would not stop Congress from hearing from him about the assault on the consulate that left four Americans dead.

"I hope we don’t have to subpoena a four-star general and the former CIA director," the congressman told Greta Van Susteren on Fox News. "I hope he would come voluntarily, but if he won’t, he will be subpoenaed."

The CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus, has put out this statement: "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate."

Fox News analyst Ralph Peters on Friday called the timing of Gen. David Petraeus’ sudden resignation as CIA director “just too perfect for the Obama administration” and speculated that "tough Chicago guys" held onto knowledge of the affair until they needed to push the spy chief out.

Peters, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, said on Fox News that just as the administration initially called the assault on the Benghazi consulate on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks "purely coincidence," it’s again "purely coincidence" for the affair to surface after the election but before Petraeus went to Capitol Hill for questioning about Benghazi.

"As an old intelligence analyst, the way I read this -- and I could be totally wrong, this is my interpretation," Petraeus is quoted as saying, "is that the administration was unhappy with Petraeus not playing ball 100 percent on their party line story."

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday a U.S. senator told him that at least two news networks have emails from the White House ordering a counterterrorism team to stand down on a rescue mission at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. . . .

Monday, October 29, 2012

What if the four dead were black, and the man in the White House were white?

Notice: No one has accused Obama of racism -- and that's because the U.S. is not a racist society.

However, the secular-liberal mythology about racism is very profitable -- and that's why, were the race-tables switched, the formerly mainstream media would long ago have dog-whistled the packs of the enraged to direct them to their prey.

Friday, October 26, 2012

The CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus, has put out this statement: "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate."

"So who in the government did tell 'anybody' not to help those in need?" Kristol asks.

"Someone decided not to send in military assets to help those Agency operators. Would the secretary of defense make such a decision on his own? No."

We know now that former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty disobeyed orders and left a CIA safe house to try and save those at the consulate.

And once there they fought a desperate fight, evacuating the consulate employees and “for over two hours they were able to fight back against approximately 200 al-Qaeda terrorists.” Numerous calls were issued for help and went unanswered. . . .

This is Medal of Honor stuff, but under Obama it’s become the stuff of a cover-up. Instead of their bravery holding the line and inspiring a rescue effort, they were left to die. . . .

In this interview, Charles Woods, father of slain SEAL Tyrone Woods, and also a lawyer, deeply questions the Obama White House.

"The number of mentions of Charles Woods in any media outlet that isn’t FOX News is 1. A blog post on US News and World Report," Greenfield concludes. "The number of stories on 'Binders of Women'? 15,542."

Explosive new allegations surrounding the Benghazi attack emerged this morning, with FOX News’ Jennifer Griffin reporting that sources have confirmed that three urgent requests for military assistance sent from the CIA annex were all denied.

"CIA operators were apparently told to 'stand down' rather than respond when shots were heard around 9:40 p.m. on September 11," reports The Blaze.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on “Meet the Press” that there has been “no inconsistency” from the White House regarding the September 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

After a discussion of Iran, host David Gregory explained that “the issue has been . . . inconsistency from the administration with regard to how they described this.”

He then played a clip of Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan saying the administration’s response has been “misleading,” before Axelrod denied it all.

Axelrod said: "There’s been no inconsistency, there’s merely been reports on the data and the intelligence that we’ve been given. And the intelligence community has been clear on this. They have been doing the best they can, giving us the intelligence they have, we’ve been sharing the information, and we’ll continue to do so."

Ritz counters with this observation: "While the 'we distributed the information as we became aware of it' line may have worked several weeks ago, officials have now confirmed that the White House knew within 24 hours that the attack was not a spontaneous mob reacting to the trailer of an anti-Islam movie."

Saturday, October 20, 2012

American drones were in the skies above the U.S. consulate in Benghazi as the deadly attack that killed ambassador Christopher Stevens unfolded, it has been revealed. Defense department officials considered sending troops in to rescue the ambassador and staff, according to CBS News, but ultimately decided not to. They would haven been able to watch the attack on-screen as it unfolded.

The revelations came a day after it emerged that U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens repeatedly pleaded with the State Department to ramp up his security team in Libya -- requests that the Pentagon ultimately denied -- in the weeks, days and hours leading up to the terrorist attack that killed him and three other Americans, newly released cables have revealed.

The documents, 166 pages in total, contain a cable signed by Stevens and dated Aug 8. . . Stevens wrote of how Benghazi had teetered from "trepidation to euphoria and back" through a "series of violent incidents." And he took pains to point out that the incidents were not spontaneous outbursts, but "organized" attacks.

Stevens put it this way: "What we have seen are not random crimes of opportunity, but rather targeted and discriminate attacks."

Another cable that bore Stevens' signature was dated Sept 11 -- the very day on which he was later killed. In this cable, Stevens expressed his concern about "growing frustration" in the Benghazi area and "growing problems with security" around the consulate.

"Stevens explicitly mentioned the Libyan police and security forces that were guarding the U.S. consulate. He said those forces 'were too weak' to keep the site secure," Hawkins reports.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Moroccan authorities have taken action against the floating abortion mill commandeered by the Dutch abortion group Women on Waves.

In a press release today, the abortion activist group notes that their ship was due to arrive in the harbor of Smir at 1pm local time but was blocked by warships.

“Marina Smir has been completely closed,” says the release. “Warships now block the entrance for the ship of Women on Waves.”

On shore, according to Australian news reports, abortionist Rebecca Gomperts the head of the organization was taken away by police for her own protection after protesters carrying graphic abortion photos called her a “terrorist” and an “assassin.”

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Greek police have been accused of directing the victims of crimes allegedly committed by immigrants to seek retribution from the violent neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party. . . .

Support for the Neo-Nazi party is soaring in the near-bankrupt state, as are racially motivated attacks on immigrants. . . .

[I]n September, a dozen flag-waving Golden Dawn supporters raided a street market in northeast Athens, asking migrants to show their passports and overturning their stalls to leave space for Greek vendors.

The reporting regarding the Neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn echos what we know of the critical events of 1930s Germany.

What is crucial is to learn from the past -- and the present. That is, to realize that similar events, with all-too-similar outcomes, can occur in any nation that lacks the cultural foundations to sustain human freedom and dignity.

Barack Obama and the Democrat Party, and not a few squishy secularized Republicans, have operated for years in alienation to those foundations.

The language and outward trappings of freedom are maintained, but the machinery, practice, and thoughtforms energizing the nuts and bolts of governance are in the opposite direction.

It can be argued, therefore, that both parties equally risk disaster, the Democrats at full speed, the Republicans at a jog. Or better, a stumble.

Societies built on shifting sand, and the freedoms of societies build on shifting sand, will not stand against the winds and rains of life in a broken world.

It matters not whether you call yourself Greece or the USA. It matters not whether you call yourself Democrat or Republican. When the foundations finally erode, the house of freedom will fall.

Far better to build the house upon the rock. Wind and rain will still come. Crisis is unavoidable in a broken world.

Let us, therefore, counsel realism, not despair. For a house built upon the rules of freedom, rooted in a real and verifiable Creator who endows humanity with unalienable rights, will stand.

This is the secret of a "shining city upon a hill." Available to all.

Ancient Greece did not have this message, and neither does Athens today. But the American Founders did, and they expressed that vision-for-freedom in the Delcaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution.

America today hangs in the balance: Will she go the way of ignorance, liberated from freedom and encouraged to accept totalistic state control over lunch rooms, patients, toilets, media, churches, filmmaking, energy, and more?

Or will she advance on the sure foundations of life secured in knowledge and freedom and community liberated -- with our humanity intact -- by a Creator who is objectively and knowably there?

The November election is crucial.

It is a moment to stand in the gap and push back the invader. But it is also an opportunity to educate the wobbly. And to expand the beachhead of freedom in America again.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Add conservative commentator Pat Buchanan to the growing list of critics of President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy, as anti-American unrest continues throughout Egypt, Libya and now Yemen.

Appearing on Fox News Channel’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Buchanan, author of "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?," pointed to Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo as the beginning of the administration’s “utterly naïve” foreign policy.

Friday, September 14, 2012

U.S. Marines are on the ground in Yemen to deal with the aftermath of an attack on the U.S. Embassy in the capital city of Sanaa, as the Obama administration warns of sustained protests outside diplomatic posts across the Middle East and North Africa.

But now, in the age of Obama, we have to ask: Do the Marines have bullets?

The Independent is reporting shocking details about the attack on the Libyan consulate that resulted in the death of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. The details are so explosive that they will result in a Congressional investigation. In fact, they’re so explosive that they should result in the resignation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. . . .

Yesterday, we reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was responsible under the law for the “security policies and programs that provide for the protection of all US government personnel . . . on official duty abroad.” Clinton herself seemed bewildered by the attacks on the Libyan consulate, asking, “How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction?”

"But according to the Independent," Shapiro writes, Clinton "had no reason to be puzzled."

Shapiro continues:

Quoting senior diplomatic sources, the paper reports, “the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted.” Nonetheless, “no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and ‘lockdown,’ under which movement is severely restricted.”

"The only question now," Shapiro writes, is this: "What did Hillary Clinton know, and when did she know it?"

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Last Saturday brought rare good news on the international religious-freedom front. Two high-profile Christian prisoners who had been severely persecuted under their countries’ Muslim apostasy and blasphemy laws were freed.

In Pakistan, Rimsha Masih, 14 years old and mentally disabled, was released on bail after being arrested on August 16 on charges that she had burned pages from a Koran -- an allegation that was bravely refuted by others. . . .

In Iran, Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, imprisoned since 2009 and facing possible execution on charges of apostasy for his conversion to Christianity, was also freed.

Shea says the international outcry was key to positive outcomes in these two cases:

When the injustices became internationally exposed, these countries’ leaders, even leaders within their respective religious establishments, were reluctant to take responsibility for the law or Masih’s or Nadarkhani’s fate.

Nina Shea is director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute. Forthcoming from Thomas Nelson Publishers in 2013 is the new book Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians, co-authored with Paul Marshall and Lela Gilbert.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

The Arab Spring takeover of Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood has run amok, with reports from several different media agencies that the radical Muslims have begun crucifying opponents of the newly installed President Mohammed Morsi. . . .

Raymond Ibrahim, a fellow with the Middle East Forum and the Investigative Project on Terrorisim, . . . says the victims can be anyone, including Christians . . . .

Ibrahim said extra brutality is reserved for Christians, but the crucifixions are because of Islamic doctrine and are required by the Quran. . . .

Center for Security Policy Senior Fellow Clare Lopez cited chapter and verse from the Quran to explain crucifixions are not simply normal for Islam, they're demanded.

"Crucifixion is a hadd punishment, stipulated in the Quran, Sura 5:33, and therefore an obligatory part of Shariah," Lopez said.

Ladies and gentlemen, My name is Ingrid Carlqvist and I was born in Sweden in 1960, when the Social Democrats were gonna rule forever and ever and our country was the nicest and safest and most progressed in the world.

Now I live in Absurdistan -- a country that has the highest figure of reported rapes in the world, hundreds of so called “exclusion areas” where people live outside the Swedish society and with newspapers that hide all these horrible facts to the people.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Unaware that a microphone was recording him, President Obama asked outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday for breathing room until after Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign to negotiate on missile defense.

“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Medvedev at the end of their 90-minute meeting, apparently referring to incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

A hard-line Iranian newspaper called Thursday for retaliation against Israel, a day after the mysterious killing of a nuclear scientist in Tehran with a magnetic bomb attached to his car.

Provocative hints from Israel reinforced the perception that the killing was part of an organized and clandestine campaign to set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which the U.S. and its allies suspect are aimed at producing weapons. Iran says the program is for peaceful purposes only.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Obama says "fairness" and "equality" are fundamental value feelings of modern America. That being so, of course Iran should keep the highly technologically advanced U.S. spy drone that somehow landed in their lap.

How so?

Imagine how unfair and unequal it is that we in the U.S. have so many of our spy drones and the Iranians have so few of our spy drones.

And now they have one.

That's still unfair and unequal, but shouldn't Obama feel a little better that the world is now just a little more fair, a little more equal?

Keep your chin up, Obama. "Losing" a spy drone is just "spreading the wealth around" by other means.

Monday, November 14, 2011

President Obama is overseas on a nine-day Blame America First tour. He’s ostensibly spending time on the other side of the Pacific to explore ways the United States can work better with Asian economies. Instead, he’s using his time in the spotlight to criticize the nation he’s supposed to be leading.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Copts, who traveled by the busloads from such places as Chicago, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, came to Washington to protest the brutal treatment of Egypt’s Christians and demand that the Obama administration pressure Cairo to protect the rights of non-Muslims.

They also wished to call attention to congressional legislation that supports Copts and other vulnerable people groups.

The demonstration was a response to an Egyptian army-led massacre of Christians on Sunday, October 9, in Cairo.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

How much does it cost taxpayers to fly First Lady Michelle Obama, her two daughters and her mother, a niece and a nephew, a hairstylist and makeup artists to South Africa and Botswana to give a few speeches, meet Nelson Mandela, and enjoy a safari on a private game preserve?

Nearly half a million dollars, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) concerning Obama's June 21-27 journey.

Well, it may be expensive, but at least the Queen's entourage is in good hands.

How can that be, you ask?

Tapscott reassures us: "The Obama daughters were listed on the manifest as 'senior staff'."

Whew! The kids as "senior staff." Was worried there for a minute. Glad somebody's helping Michelle mind the store.

Hat tip: Drudge Report

Monday, September 26, 2011

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro accused U.S. President Barack Obama of speaking "gibberish" in his recent address to the United Nations and called NATO's actions in Libya a "monstrous crime" Monday in his first opinion column since early July.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

"Muslim radicalism is more powerful today than when Obama took over," writes James Lewis at American Thinker. "In every country where it was suppressed, Muslim radicals are now in the open and making a serious grab for power."

Sunday, August 7, 2011

This tragedy is a sad reminder of the debt of gratitude and honor that we owe to the courageous men and women of the U.S. military, those guardians of freedom who protect American liberty while standing watch on distant ramparts across the world.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Most Arab countries have a less favorable view of America under President Barack Obama than they had at the end of the George W. Bush administration, according to a new report from the Arab American Institute (AAI).

AAI reported that Arab world opinion of the U.S. and President Obama -- the man long heralded as the one to heal the wounds that the Bush administration had allegedly inflicted upon the Arab world -- has dropped to an all time low.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

President Barack Obama’s stunning endorsement of a peace process embracing Israel’s pre-1967 borders -- a situation that Israeli leaders declare would leave the Jewish State “defenseless” -- is prompting closer scrutiny of a small coterie of left-leaning advisers long antagonistic of America’s close ally.

One of them, former journalist and professor Samantha Power, once declared that the United States might one day invade Israel to disarm it and support a Palestinian state along the very controversial lines Obama now embraces.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

As we sit down to feast with our families this holiday, the blessing might well include a word of thanks to the men and women of our armed forces. While we celebrate our national holiday in the warmth and comfort of homes, they serve at grave peril in faraway places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some of our troops are in Korea. There an unprovoked attack from the North killed four South Koreans on Tuesday. That outrage reminds us of the continuing danger posed by the murderous thugs in Pyongyang. But it should also spur us to remember those Americans who, 60 years ago, spent Thanksgiving fighting at the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. It was a vicious, brutal battle and one of the Marine Corps’ finest hours.

And yet, as if he can’t quite help himself, out comes this astonishingly crude remark. As reported in the New York Times, he was asked about “the anxiety of many Israelis who feel that he does not have a special bond with Israel." Obama replied -- get ready for it: “Some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion.”

Or could it be, as Rosett suggests, "that it’s Obama himself who’s been paying too much attention to his own middle name."

Rosett concludes: "There are life and death matters here in which he has been failing the test as leader of the Free World, and that -- not his middle name -- is the problem."

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

"The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that the benefits of bombing Iran's nuclear program outweigh the short-term costs such an attack would impose," reports the Washington Times.

Monday, July 5, 2010

How can this be? After all, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States assured the American people less than one week ago that our "southern border is more secure today than at any time in the past 20 years," notes IBD in "Shootout at El Paso City Hall."

But that was teleprompter happytalk disconnected from reality.

With each passing day, it becomes more and more clear: The Obama White House has become an impediment to the lives and liberties of Americans in Texas, not to mention in Arizona and in all the border States.

Weakness at the border is not unrelated to weakness in Washington. Physical violence spilling over from Mexico into our land is not unrelated to constitutional violence spilling over from Washington into our land.

The lesson seems clear: Americans who remember who they are as creatures of resistance in their national heritage and in our human identity must rise up to throw off the oppressor -- whether he be across the border in Mexico or across the border in D.C.

It's 120 days until election day Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010.

Yesterday we celebrated our independence from an alien power imposing its will upon America. In this November we do so again. And there is no artificial timetable for withdrawal from the field of battle, Mr. Oppressor. Let freedom ring.

"This case against crucifixes was brought by a woman who argued that her children had a right to a secular education under Italy's constitution."

Apparently, the sovereign nation of Italy no longer exists. This need not be so.

Someone please go tell the European court and the Italians: If unalienable rights endowed upon humanity by the Creator are not universal, they are not unalienable.

If Italians want to live in an exceptional nation that need not go begging to other human beings for "rights," they may want to consider listening to, and applying instead, the information we have from the Creator. The Creator-based concepts that made, and can again make, the United States exceptional (see the Declaration of Independence) are equally available and applicable to any being created equal in the image of God. That includes the Italians.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

A Jewish dance group was attacked in Germany last Saturday while performing during a street festival in Hanover," reports Arutz Sheva.

"Members of the Haverim dance group were pelted with stones as they took the stage. One dancer was injured. As youth threw stones, they screamed 'Juden Raus' (Jews out). . . . Five of the six suspects" aged 9 to 19 are "Muslim immigrants."

The feds are long since AWOL on sufficient border protection, and now the hapless Obama regime seems imperiously upset that a "sovereign state such as Arizona" is "doing something, anything, in the face of decades-long wanton negligence," notes the Augusta Chronicle.

To avoid bad faith and a merely private "faith" ("my" "truth") it is crucial that one's politics, commentary, science, ethics, theology, and worldview are rooted in real-world facts and the possibility of verifiability and therefore falsification.

I cast my vote for a Rosie who is passionately uniformed -- a state of being which, however, if practiced for years can produce a stupidity that seems interminable, if not dishonest, not just for an entertainer but also for a president. Bad faith, like a little learning, can be a dangerous thing.

Friday, June 11, 2010

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her sharpest rebuke yet of the oil industry, said Friday that BP should not make dividend payments to stockholders until those affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are made "whole."

So, apparently, there is still time for a concerned world to pressure Iran, says the U.S. secretary of defense. And with the likes of Gulf Oil Disaster Team Obama on the watch and knowing how to kick whatever, what's to worry?

Monday, June 7, 2010

Upwards of 10,000 people marched from Downing Street to the Israeli Embassy in London on June 5 to condemn the criminal attack on the Gaza aid flotilla by Israel on May 31. The attack, which occurred in international waters, saw the murder of nine Turkish civilians on board a Turkish-flagged ship attempting to deliver much-needed aid to Gaza, which remains under an Israeli blockade.

Here's what's really going on, according to Mr. Reed: "In reality, the world’s major powers continue to defend Israel because they pursue their own criminal imperialist ambitions and represent the same class forces."

Saturday, June 5, 2010

"A top adviser to President Obama is the contact person within the White House for communications with the Free Gaza Movement over plans to challenge Israel's blockade of the terrorist Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, according to a reputable source close to the Netanyahu government," reports Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily.

"The source, a career official whose reliability was established through his tips for the book Why Israel Can't Wait, identified John O. Brennan, deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism, as the contact."

Monday, May 31, 2010

"Australian public opinion has made history," writes Peter Hartcher at the Sydney Morning Herald. "We have the distinction of becoming the first people in the world to name China as the world's leading economic power -- even before the Chinese themselves."

German President Horst Koehler resigned Monday in a surprise move after being criticized for reportedly linking military deployments abroad with the country's economic interests -- creating a new headache for Chancellor Angela Merkel. . . .

He said in that broadcast that, for a country with Germany's dependency on exports, military deployments could be "necessary . . . in order to defend our interests, for example, free trade routes."

That was taken by many as relating to Germany's unpopular mission in Afghanistan, although his office later said that he was referring to anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia. Germans are often uneasy about deployments abroad, given the country's militaristic past, and the mission in Afghanistan makes many particularly uncomfortable.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Confronting soaring frustration over illegal immigration, President Barack Obama on Wednesday condemned Arizona's crackdown and pushed instead for a federal fix the nation could embrace. He said that will never happen without Republican support, pleading: "I need some help."

In asking anew for an immigration overhaul, Obama showed solidarity with his guest of honor, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who called Arizona's law discriminatory and warned Mexico would reject any effort to "criminalize migration."

"Back in 1984, when the late Jeane J. Kirkpatrick gave her famous 'Blame America First' speech to the Republican National Convention, liberals at least waited for something bad to happen before blaming America," writes columnist Michelle Malkin.

"Today, Obama Democrats have now mastered the treacherous art of the pre-emptive global apology. Foggy Bottom is crammed with so many 'human rights' zealots embarrassed by the country they serve that the State Department mission statement should be replaced with a condolence card."

Malkin notes that "Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner is probably not the first Obama State Department official to badmouth America in front of foreign delegations. He was just dumb enough to get caught."

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

The difference between a Jewish liberal and a Jewish conservative is that when a Jewish liberal walks out of the Holocaust Museum, he feels, "This shows why we need to have more tolerance and multiculturalism." The Jewish conservative feels, "We should have killed a lot more Nazis, and sooner."

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

"There’s a white flag flying over America this morning and it was run up the flagpole by President Barack Obama without the knowledge or permission of the American people," writes Judi McLeod at CanadaFreePress.

"Sporting a Chicago White Sox baseball cap," McLeod continues, "the Girly on the Mound of yesterday’s baseball opener went on to toss the bombshell that he will make the world a nuclear weapons free zone."

Perhaps Obama thought BB was a Tea Partier who affirms the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Can't be seen bowing to an American patriot.

Such a provocative act might be seen as incendiary, an incitement to right-wing violence of the kind fair-minded observers have long associated with the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and other racists, prudes, Nazis, and caucasians.

Whatever the explanation, rest assured that Obama is right and that whoever objects or questions his authority is wrong. Yep, it's great to have an infallible president who is never, ever wrong about anything (as is called for in the living Constitution).

This is the man called by history and fate to heal America and heal the world. He knows just when to bow to others and when to tell them to sit down, shut up, and go home.

Monday, March 1, 2010

"It was standing room only at the BostonBrighton Tea Party organised by the Freedom Association early this evening at which Dan Hannan was guest speaker," writes Jonathan Isaby at ToryDiary. "He said that it was time to 'bring sanity and order back to the public finances' an that had to be done by reducing expenditure rather than increasing taxes."

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Question Politicized Authority: "Without trustworthy science and with so much at stake, Americans should be wary about what comes out of this politicized conference," writes Sarah Palin in a column at the Washington Post.

"The president should boycott Copenhagen," concludes the author of Going Rogue.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) "said Tuesday he is going to attend the Copenhagen conference on climate change to inform world leaders that despite any promises made by President Obama, no new laws will be passed in the United States until the 'scientific fascism' ends," reports Fox News.

"The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations," reports the UK Guardian.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

"Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan," writes Gabor Steingart at Der Spiegel.

"One didn't have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama's speech," Steingart continues.

"It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly."

My View: Obama's heart was not in this speech, just as his heart is not in winning this war.

A dark cloud now hovers above the head of Obama. I hope I am wrong, but this suggests dark days ahead for the United States and our troops in the field.

The need for the people of America to return home to Declarational and Constitutional foundations is stronger than ever. Those foundations will help us weather the mere "values" of weak presidents who know not what they do.

"Last night President Obama outlined his long-anticipated war plan for Afghanistan before thousands of cadets and families at the United States Military Academy," writes Robert Maginnis at Human Events.

Unfortunately, "Obama’s lofty ideas don’t mesh with the realities on the ground."

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Heroes on Trial: "In the latest absurdity in the war on terrorism," editorializes the Washington Times, "Petty Officers Matthew McCabe, Jonathan Keefe and Julio Huertas face charges related to the apprehension of Ahmed Hashim Abed, alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four American security contractors in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. The 'war crime' at issue is a punch in the gut."

And after the trial, this may be in order: Let the SEALS run for Congress. They seem to know who the bad guys are.

"At first it was just an unverifiable assertion," she writes. "Now it turns out to have been a case of bureaucratic ineptitude and possible fraud."

Well, that platitude may be a joke, but Obama's dithering on Afghanistan isn't.

One wonders: In the midst of all this presidential indecisiveness, how many additional U.S. warriors have been wounded or killed? How many hung out to dry because a commander in chief is working on his jumpshot? Or setting up show trials for terrorists in New York City?

And how many additional U.S. warriors will be killed or wounded now and tomorrow in Afghanistan and across the world because an American president exudes a weakness and lack of seriousness approaching and perhaps surpassing even that of the ill-famed Jimmy Carter?

Saturday, November 21, 2009

"U.S. Senator John McCain predicted an allied win in Afghanistan in one year to 18 months if sufficient troops are sent, as the White House mulls sending tens of thousands of reinforcements," reports AFP.

"But he said that timeline is threatened by U.S. President Barack Obama's delay in rolling out a new Afghanistan strategy."

Friday, November 20, 2009

In "The China President Obama Didn't See," an intriguing comment on Obama's recent trip to communist China, Leslie Hook in the Wall Street Journal muses upon why the Chinese government is so fearful of "unregistered" churches.

She writes:

Chinese and foreign observers alike believe the number of Chinese belonging to underground churches may now exceed 100 million people. That figure has grown rapidly as more and more Chinese, particularly well-educated city dwellers, turn away from Communist Party atheism. [emphasis added]

Life has never been easy for the underground churches, and recently it has gotten a lot harder. This is the result, according to the Christian charity group China Aid, of a state directive handed down in August. Why do China's powerful leaders fear these churches, most of which steer clear of politics? It may be that they have grown increasingly paranoid about the political power of religion given the unrest they have faced in Buddhist Tibet and Muslim Xinjiang. Or it could be because dissident intellectuals, such as jailed human-rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, have sometimes tended toward Christianity. [emphasis added]

As a questioning and free-thinking human being who affirms the philosophic and reality-oriented answers given in the Judeo-Christian worldview to the basic questions of existence raised by life in a challenging universe -- answers superior to those offered by secular humanism, atheism, agnosticism, and so on (and superior, by the way, to that fragmentation that passes for political liberalism these days) -- one can appreciate in some small measure why "well-educated city dwellers" and "dissident intellectuals" are attracted to Christianity.

As a person religiously committed to god-talk secularism, Mr. Obama seems blessedly ignorant of the vibrancy and intellectual strength of the historic Judeo-Christian worldview here in the United States. So I suppose, in this respect, it is hardly unexpected that he misses it abroad in the land of Mao.

Upshot for Mr. Obama and the Chinese: The next few years may hold a few surprises for him, them, and like-minded people of secular faith.

Monday, October 12, 2009

News that a McDonald's is to open shortly in the bosom of the Louvre has sent waves of shock and horror worldwide. Appalled art lovers cringe at the possibility of the outlet serving up a juicy Double Da Vinci burger with a side of frites. Or a Francis Bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

"A majority of Americans are skeptical that diplomacy with Iran will succeed and say the U.S. should use military action if necessary to prevent the Iranian government from developing a nuclear weapon," reports Bloomberg.com.

"A Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey released today found 61 percent of Americans would support a military strike. Twenty-four percent said it is more important to avoid conflict even if that means Iran will end up building nuclear arms."

Monday, October 5, 2009

"Sources tell Newsmax the Obama administration is muzzling its top military leaders, and keeping them from publicly airing their views on how to fight the war in Afghanistan," reports David A. Patten at Newmax.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "vitriolic attacks on the Jewish world hide an astonishing secret," says the UK Telegraph. "A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots."

"A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian -- a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver," reports the Telegraph. "The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth."

One wonders how many of Ahmadinejad's Jewish family and relatives were murdered or otherwise liquidated in the Holocaust that never happened.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

A cherished maxim of self-congratulatory liberals is the notion that diplomacy and negotiation are always the best course of action because "as long as the two sides are talking, they are not shooting."

That was not true on the morning of December 7, 1941.

On that very day, Japanese diplomats were in Washington to continue ongoing talks for peace between Japan and America, as Japanese planes were slaughtering some 2,400 American servicemen at Pearl Harbor.

President Obama now has America, and Israel, on that same course in regard to Iran.